The Airline Association of Southern Africa (AASA) has raised concerns about persistent flight delays at several airports across the country.
This comes after the continued suspension of more than 200 instrument flight procedures by the country’s Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) at airports across the country.
Airline operations disrupted
AASA CEO Aaron Munetsi said the suspension of flight procedures continues to disrupt airline operations and cost airlines millions of dollars in additional fuel, engine wear and maintenance, crew flight duty, flight operations support, customer compensation and reputational damage.
Munetsi told eNCA that passengers are “safe in the skies.”
“We are safe in the skies. One thing I want to reassure our travelling public in South Africa and beyond is that our airlines would never sacrifice the safety of their operations.
“But, yes, we are very concerned because the suspension of these instrument flight procedures means that our aircraft or operators who have been so meticulous in terms of their planning processes have to carry an extra burden of making sure that operations are continuing to be safe,” Munetsi said.
Instrument flight procedures
Munetsi said instrument flight procedures are a combination of paperwork and processes themselves.
“The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) requires that for every approach to an airport, there is what is called the instrument flight procedures. That means there has to be a process of evaluating if there are any obstacles in and around that airport.
“That process results in paperwork that guides us that these are the obstacles that we have observed and these are processes that the pilots need to take for them to avoid these obstacles and that paperwork is submitted to the Civil Aviation Authority who then verify that obstacles have actually been correctly identified and processes have correctly been put in place so that the operation is 100% safe and secure,” said Munetsi.
Visual approach
Munetsi said when the instrument flight procedures are suspended, pilots have to rely on visual approach amid inclement weather, like the country is currently experiencing.
“The pilots cannot see the ground, they cannot see the obstacles. It becomes impossible for them to operate, and we will never allow them to take chances. That’s why flights can be diverted or cancelled.”
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Suspensions
The ATNS previously confirmed the suspension of instrument flight procedures for all instrument-navigation flight approaches at airports in George, Kimberley, Polokwane, Mthatha and Richards Bay to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
The suspension has severely affected flights to these airports.
Other airports, including OR Tambo, Cape Town, Upington and East London, seem to still have at least one approved approach available.
Resolving issues
In March, Transport minister Barbara Creecy said her department was working on resolving the issues.
Operationally, critical flight procedures, which caused delays and airport closures last year due to a lack of maintenance, should have been updated every five years, but were not.
Years of neglect, mismanagement and governance failures have left the entity stripped of skilled workers and scrambling to ensure that aircraft operate on time and safely.
Creecy said the failure to maintain the entire air traffic management ecosystem was apparent.
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